Forty days before the 2004 election, Fort Lauderdale congressman E. Clay Shaw's Democratic opponent, James R. Stork, dropped out. But although Secretary of State Glenda Hood had the discretion to let the Democrats substitute a candidate, she refused to let them do it. Too much trouble so late, she said. Too much confusion.

It wasn't the first time Floridians had reason to wonder whether Hood, a Republican appointee of a Republican governor, let partisanship taint a decision.

That time, however, justice intervened. Circuit Judge Janet Ferris reiterated what Florida's chief elections official should not have needed to be told: "the strong public policy . . . of providing voters with greater choice and ensuring ballot access." Ferris declared the law unconstitutional, under the separation of powers doctrine, for giving unguided discretion to Hood. The 1st District Court of Appeal agreed, and so did the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled last week.

Bush abandoned his pledge last month, encouraging a key committee in the U.S. House to approve drilling 213 miles from Tampa Bay. U.S. Reps. Jeff Miller, Mike Bilirakis and Cliff Stearns went along with it -- along with local Reps. Tom Feeney and John Mica.

Bush and Colleen Castile, secretary of the state's Department of Environmental Protection, say the deal they struck will protect Florida coastlines. That's silly: Drilling off Florida's coast is illegal now. If the deal Gov. Bush struck becomes law, 2.4 million underwater acres would be open for oil exploration.

With the possibility of more. The deal, approved last month by the U.S. House Resources Committee and last week by the House Budget Committee, gives state officials the authority to approve natural gas drilling within 25 miles of the shoreline and oil drilling within 50 miles (and gives the state half the royalties paid by energy companies that win leases inside a 125-mile buffer).

The obvious implication is that state officials can and should be trusted to say no to energy companies wanting to drill. Bush's capitulation proves how flimsy that assumption can be.

Despite looming fiscal crises, House Republicans took the first step Thursday in eliminating a tax largely paid by millionaires and businesses.

Gov. Jeb Bush has led the charge against the intangibles tax on stocks, bonds and other investments. During his term, lawmakers have reduced the tax by more than 75 percent since he took office in 1999, cutting the state's revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Is indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay meddling in the Democratic primary for Florida governor?

No way, says state Sen. Rod Smith, who charges he's the victim of a prank e-mail that suggests the conservative Republican leader is endorsing the North Florida Democrat's run for governor.

In a victory for opponents of more oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, U.S. House leaders dropped a plan to allow oil and gas exploration closer to Florida.

The deal that Bush and several Florida Republicans endorsed [and is now dead] would allow oil rigs 125 miles off the Gulf Coast, beyond sight, and would permit energy companies to negotiate directly with the state Legislature to put drilling operations closer.

The current patchwork of deals prohibits drilling within 200 miles of Tampa Bay, which has preserved an area off the Pinellas County coast called Lease Sale Area 181, a region that energy experts believe is rich in oil reserves.

As recently as 2001, Bush staunchly opposed drilling in Area 181.

Disaster-preparedness officials want to create a "culture of preparedness" in Florida, encouraging personal responsibility first and governmental response as a supplement to recovery from hurricanes.

Bush will ask lawmakers to enact another sales tax holiday for hurricane supplies, in which state residents would not pay taxes on items such as generators.

is retiring. At least, she is putting the position of bureau chief into the capable hands of Steve Bousquet, but she is still going to work on "special projects."

The U.S. House could vote by Thursday to allow oil and gas drilling closer to Florida, but Rep. Clay Shaw, trying to defuse a sensitive political issue, is working to kill a legislative provision that would open the door to more drilling.

Shaw, a Fort Lauderdale Republican who faces a tough reelection race next year, said Tuesday he is negotiating with House GOP leaders to remove a provision in a $54 billion deficit reduction package that would loosen a national ban on drilling.

"Although intuitively . . . the idea of small classrooms is a fine idea, when you magnify that issue across the state, the negative impact greatly outweighs a qualitative benefit," said W.C. Gentry of Jacksonville, chairman of the Council for Education Policy, Research and Improvement, a group appointed by the governor and legislative leaders.

Two high-ranking prison officers and the recently resigned Panhandle district director of the Department of Corrections were charged with felony battery Tuesday in the beating of a former correctional officer who was injured in a fracas during a party at the Tallahassee armory.

The latest twist in a long-running state and federal inquiry into corruption in the prison system resulted from an investigation by the Tallahassee Police Department. James Edward O'Bryan suffered a bloody nose, cuts to his mouth and bruised ribs in the April 1 incident but told investigators he did not want to pursue criminal charges because he feared of reprisals against his wife, a Department of Corrections employee.

With South Florida residents still fuming about downed power poles and endless days without electricity, two South Florida lawmakers said Wednesday they want legislative leaders to investigate Florida Power & Light's maintenance practices and review the decision by state regulators to allow the utility to charge consumers for last year's hurricane repairs.

Sen. Steve Geller, a Hallandale Beach Democrat, has asked the Senate Communications and Utilities Committee to put FPL executives under oath and grill them about maintenance of its power poles.

Rep. Ron Greenstein, a Coconut Creek Democrat, has asked House Speaker Allan Bense to investigate a Public Service Commission decision to allow FPL to charge customers for what they have called ''lost revenue'' to cover their hurricane costs last year.

''I am greatly concerned when I hear that a power company with a complete monopoly on electrical service in my district has no financial incentive to restore power quickly, because they can just ask the PSC for a surcharge to make up for lost revenue,'' he wrote.

The leaders of two Senate committees said Tuesday they will look into whether the power outages after Hurricane Wilma were preventable and conduct a broader investigation into how well prepared all state utility companies are for hurricanes.

crowed loudly last month that the state senator from Alachua had raised more money - $322,000 to $320,000 - than his U.S. Rep. Jim Davis of Tampa, his rival for the Democratic nomination. ...

Well, since then the Smith campaign has quietly amended its report. Its new total for the quarter: $317,857, less than Davis.

Florida's sickest Medicaid patients might get inadequate care if Gov. Jeb Bush succeeds in placing them into private managed care programs, a group [of 84 state and local health and low-income advocacy organizations] warned legislators in a letter Monday.

Technically, the fuel-increase surcharge is not a ''rate increase'' -- a point that PSC Chairman Braulio Baez emphasized Monday, saying that the improper use of rate-related terms is a "pet peeve" of his. Baez helped lead the charge in July to tack a $1.68 monthly surcharge on FPL customers' bills to help pay for storm damage last year. That charge, to last through February 2008, includes $34 million to reimburse FPL for "lost revenue" -- money it lost out on because it wasn't providing electricity to blacked-out homes after storms.

Consumer advocates, among them AARP lawyer Mike Twomey, say that fee amounts to charging customers for power they didn't use. Swank said the "lost revenue" term was used by PSC staff, not FPL. He said the company is charging people for the recovery of costs incurred in restoring power, but that no one was charged for power they didn't use. Baez said he wasn't sure if the PSC would consider another such fee, pegged to Hurricane Wilma's damage. "I don't know what to foresee," he said.

As for the latest fuel-related surcharge request, advocates from the Office of Public Counsel, the state consumer-advocacy agency, say there's little it can challenge before the PSC, except for a portion of the fuel-recovery money sought by Progress Energy, which might have bought coal from a subsidiary for more than the market rate. The group is also protesting FPL's decision to use $25 million in fuel-recovery money to repair steam-generator pipes for one of its nuclear generators in Port St. Lucie.

"It doesn't make sense. What they're basically asking for is a tune-up, and they're claiming it should be paid with gas money," Twomey said. "They should pay this out of their base rates, not take even more from the consumer's pockets. People are paying enough already."

Look up the word "travesty" in the dictionary and William Thornton IV should come to mind. The young man who had no criminal record was recently sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in a tragic traffic accident that left two people dead - a sentence more severe than those for some murderers and child molesters.

Thornton's harsh punishment was the result of a perfect storm of inadequate lawyering and vindictive sentencing. But things can still be set right. The courts have the opportunity to set aside Thornton's conviction and set the stage for a new trial, or modify his sentence. And if they don't act, the governor and the state clemency board should.

Thornton was only 17 when he took the advice of his public defender and pleaded no contest to two charges of vehicular homicide arising from a Citrus County traffic accident. Two people who weren't wearing seat belts died in December after Thornton, who didn't have a driver's license, ran a stop sign while speeding. After cresting a hill, Thornton was surprised by the coming intersection and tried unsuccessfully to use the brakes and the emergency brake to stop before entering the crossroad where the crash occurred. Since the accident, a sign has been posted warning motorists of the stop sign ahead.

Gov. Bush can look to his own family for an example of this kind of tragedy and how the legal system can deal compassionately with tragic traffic accidents. When his sister-in-law and our country's first lady was 17 years old, the then-Laura Welch ran a stop sign in Midland, Texas, striking a car and killing a young man. In that case, no charges were filed.

That Higher Education Access Task Force that emerged this summer to help bring about the "seamless" grade-school-to-graduate-school system promised by the governor and Legislature seems stuck on the idea of Florida's community colleges becoming alternative diploma mills.

Board of Education Chairman Phil Handy, who convened the task force, keeps angling for more four-year degree programs at the state's two-year community colleges. It's yet another attempt to mint more bachelor's degrees on the cheap and with less oversight, even as the state already is underfinancing the two- and four-year schools. ...

Finally, those on the board of governors are tiring of being props in Mr. Handy's power grab. The question remains who will fight for the universities, and in this case the community colleges as well.

For all his downplaying of the recommendations of his "ad-hoc throwaway committee," Mr. Handy clearly intends to go where he's not supposed to go with those recommendations: all he way to next year's legislative session and beyond. And for all the talk of guaranteeing quality, he's actually guaranteeing that some degrees won't mean anything.